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Need reliable trade printer (not 4over)

SaraG

SaraG

New Member
Hello,
After 3 years with our own print shop, we are going lean as sales are not justifying keeping the shop.
We sell custom products to schools in the United States.

Materials we need printed.
Large scrim banner: largest we sell is ----------> 8ft x 50ft.
Floor adhesive 3.2ml vinyl: largest sheet is --------------> 52" x 120 inches

Note: 2017/18 gave over 500K orders to 4over but they still shipped all our orders individually to the SAME LOCATION!! cost us a fortune.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
SaraG said:
Hello,
After 3 years with our own print shop, we are going lean as sales are not justifying keeping the shop.
We sell custom products to schools in the United States.

Materials we need printed.
Large scrim banner: largest we sell is ----------> 8ft x 50ft.
Floor adhesive 3.2ml vinyl: largest sheet is --------------> 52" x 120 inches

Note: 2017/18 gave over 500K orders to 4over but they still shipped all our orders individually to the SAME LOCATION!! cost us a fortune.
Click to expand...
4over is stupid when it comes to shipping...and their website is terrible. Use Signs365. I get 10x40 banners from them and it's still $10 shipping for a giant tube overnight.
 
SaraG

SaraG

New Member
Texas_Signmaker said:
4over is stupid when it comes to shipping...and their website is terrible. Use Signs365. I get 10x40 banners from them and it's still $10 shipping for a giant tube overnight.
Click to expand...
My boss just signed up with Signs365 and already got a welcome call. We are not used to this type of treatment.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
How do you have a shop doing in house production plus 500k in outsourced work and not make enough to justify keeping your shop? Sounds like you need to reevaluate your pricing structure more than you do your wholesaler.
 
Aardvark Printing

Aardvark Printing

New Member
SaraG said:
Hello,
After 3 years with our own print shop, we are going lean as sales are not justifying keeping the shop.
We sell custom products to schools in the United States.

Materials we need printed.
Large scrim banner: largest we sell is ----------> 8ft x 50ft.
Floor adhesive 3.2ml vinyl: largest sheet is --------------> 52" x 120 inches

Note: 2017/18 gave over 500K orders to 4over but they still shipped all our orders individually to the SAME LOCATION!! cost us a fortune.
Click to expand...
I've had good results with sinalite and they're in your neighborhood

SinaLite Trade Wholesale Printing | Maximize Your Print Profits!

Looking for trade wholesale printer? SinaLite prints with industry-leading technology, exclusively low prices, and turnarounds as fast as 1 day.
sinalite.com sinalite.com
 
kcollinsdesign

kcollinsdesign

Old member
Notarealsignguy said:
How do you have a shop doing in house production plus 500k in outsourced work and not make enough to justify keeping your shop? Sounds like you need to reevaluate your pricing structure more than you do your wholesaler.
Click to expand...
I don't understand how a small commercial sign printing shop can be viable in the face of current trade prices. Our printers and laminators were sold off years ago, along with the 8000 square foot shop. Now we concentrate on sales, design, installation and maintenance and our profit per employee has doubled.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
kcollinsdesign said:
I don't understand how a small commercial sign printing shop can be viable in the face of current trade prices. Our printers and laminators were sold off years ago, along with the 8000 square foot shop. Now we concentrate on sales, design, installation and maintenance and our profit per employee has doubled.
Click to expand...
We've already went over this. My sign/decal department (for lack of a better term) gets no volume discounts, has no high tech finishing equipment and production costs work out to be exactly 50% of S365 prices. I would consider myself to be the bottom and most others here to be well ahead of this mark. You cant spend margin so given a choice, I'll take the dollars.
 
jochwat

jochwat

Graphics Department
My two pennies: I work full-time for an industrial sign business, and on the weekends / spare time I do some design work for mainly for my local neighborhood businesses. The only equipment I have for the side gig is my computer equipment (which gets upgraded next month, yahoooo!), and a 24" x16' heat press I got for a steal that takes up about 1/4 of my home office. All print work is subbed out to three places at the moment, depending on the job, and all three of those have been mentioned already in this thread: FireSprint, Signs365, and Sinalite. I'd vouch for all three. I intend to do more work with FireSprint at some point, and have mostly used them for decals. Lots of banner orders with Signs365, as well as two-sided vinyl and aluminum. For Sinalite it's mainly been to take advantage of their one-off custom t-shirt offerings (as prototypes, personalized items, gifts, etc.), but also for some small format printing (they have a pretty nice business card deal).
 
johnnysigns

johnnysigns

New Member
We use Wyld GFI and have nothing but great results with their team. I feel like it's been close to 20years that we've been working with them. I don't know the folks at Firesprint other than following them on here, but they seem well equipped, organized and should fit the bill too.
 
SaraG

SaraG

New Member
jochwat said:
My two pennies: I work full-time for an industrial sign business, and on the weekends / spare time I do some design work for mainly for my local neighborhood businesses. The only equipment I have for the side gig is my computer equipment (which gets upgraded next month, yahoooo!), and a 24" x16' heat press I got for a steal that takes up about 1/4 of my home office. All print work is subbed out to three places at the moment, depending on the job, and all three of those have been mentioned already in this thread: FireSprint, Signs365, and Sinalite. I'd vouch for all three. I intend to do more work with FireSprint at some point, and have mostly used them for decals. Lots of banner orders with Signs365, as well as two-sided vinyl and aluminum. For Sinalite it's mainly been to take advantage of their one-off custom t-shirt offerings (as prototypes, personalized items, gifts, etc.), but also for some small format printing (they have a pretty nice business card deal).
Click to expand...

Crazy thing with Sinalite. We applied on their website before 4Over and they declined us stating we are not a real print shop "reseller" and don't have a brick and mortar shop. We just "applied" again two days ago. Still waiting for their reply.
 
SaraG

SaraG

New Member
Aardvark Printing said:
I've had good results with sinalite and they're in your neighborhood

SinaLite Trade Wholesale Printing | Maximize Your Print Profits!

Looking for trade wholesale printer? SinaLite prints with industry-leading technology, exclusively low prices, and turnarounds as fast as 1 day.
sinalite.com sinalite.com
Click to expand...
sinalite.png
 
FlorenceC

FlorenceC

Coffee first. Your problems later.
Just a note on Sinalite - we've not had the necessity to run large format through them, but I really have to say their QA has been a bit uneven - labels are okay, but business cards? Registration issues, paper supply, and grain tracking have all caused us to request reprints multiple times. I have used them at multiple workplaces over the years; it never used to be this bad.
 
N

netsol

Premium Subscriber
SaraG
i had the same experience with Signs365, if i recall. i opened an account with signs2trade, B2signs & attempted to do the same with signs365
they refused to open an accouny because in 2018 i did not have a visible sign when they did a google street view of our location

I never, (up till this day) wanted walk-in clients. we choose who we want to do business with, then, approach them, and pursue their business. hopefully all clients are potential repeat business.
i have no interest in a one time piece of business
 
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